O/T Labour

[drillerpie]

The Labour Party shouldn't be a "middle ground" party. It's supposed to be a S/socialist Party representing the Left of British politics.

Likewise, the Conservative Party's job is to represent the Right of British politics.

This is what gives electorates a choice. And if they genuinely do want a "middle ground" party then that's the job of A N Other party, be that Liberal Democrat or whatever.

The idea that the leading parties of the Right and Left in Britain should move towards the middle ground is poison for democracy, opening the door for career politicians who simply pretend to represent the views of whichever party badge they think will give them the best chance of election in a particular area. And the more of those types of politician infest a party, then the more its core ideology and purpose is weakened, opening the door for unelected bureaucrats and the media to influence and dictate policy.

At various different stages of my lifetime, the media and other 'commentators' have had it that the Labour Party or the Conservative Party were so unfashionable as to never be electable again, and the follow-on argument is invariably that they should look to appeal more to the centre ground. This is, in effect, the deep state protecting itself and telling people they should choose between different cheeks of the same arse.

In reality, fashions change and public satisfaction or anger changes, and the best democratic interests of the ordinary person in the street are served by having a proper choice and clear blue water between at least two parties, if not more.

I agree with you and yet disagree with you at the same time. Our electoral system forces parties to try to appeal to the mainstream. Only Labour or Conservative can win an election in our country. No other party can even get a foothold really, how many votes did UKIP get in their heyday and how many seats did they get?

I still maintain that voting to change our electoral system in the 2010(?) referemdum would've been a much better way of 'taking back control'.

[jackal2]

I agree with you and yet disagree with you at the same time. Our electoral system forces parties to try to appeal to the mainstream. Only Labour or Conservative can win an election in our country. No other party can even get a foothold really, how many votes did UKIP get in their heyday and how many seats did they get?

I still maintain that voting to change our electoral system in the 2010(?) referemdum would've been a much better way of 'taking back control'.

I kind of agree and disagree with you too. It's a conundrum!

As you say, our electoral system does make it difficult for any party other than the Conservatives or Labour to be in Government, or at the very least be the dominant part of a governing coalition. So yes, the two parties are always under pressure to court the middle ground swing voters who might tip the balance towards them, but it becomes bad for democracy when that goes too far and begins to undermine the core values of the parties concerned, as it definitely did for Labour under Blair and the Conservatives under Cameron. For me, both of those leaders were snake oil salesmen whose primary thought was always for their own career, rather than their country.

Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, won three General Elections on a strong right-wing platform, and yet we can be fairly certain that a sizeable portion of those who voted her into office would NOT have held such strongly right-leaning views. I don't know whether it was her persona as a strong leader, or particular individual policies which had a crossover appeal, but for Thatcher to win the majorities she did, she must have attracted a predominant portion of the floating vote, disproving the argument that parties have to water down their core beliefs or message to win. In fact, her intransigence may have been a vote winner in itself, because many people interpreted that as strength.

It's other would be power brokers, such as unelected bureaucrats, who actively want to water down the party ideologies, so they get to a point where public decisions to change the Government don't actually change anything.

(In the comedy Yes Minister, which was great because it was not only funny but very true, Civil Servants likes of Sir Humphrey Applebly fear nothing more than strongly ideological "interventionist politicians who have ideas about running the country themselves". He's much happier with egotistical career politicians who could be house-trained and fobbed off with short-term publicity stunts and pettifogging issues, "leaving the job of Government in the hands of the experts", who of course would then serve and help themselves, often literally.)

It's certainly arguable that under a different electoral system, political parties would feel less pressured to water down their ideology to chase extra votes, but we also know from other countries that systems like PR tend to require complicated coalitions of these parties to form a government, and that this situation once again creates opportunities for non-elected elements to exploit the confusion or lack of direction for their own ends. So on balance, I prefer the First Past the Post system with its greater chance of returning strong single-party Governments, but it does need the leading parties within it to remain true to their values, in the democratic interests of the public.

Give me a Thatcher or a Corbyn any day over a Cameron or a Blair!

[sidders]

I kind of agree and disagree with you too. It's a conundrum!

As you say, our electoral system does make it difficult for any party other than the Conservatives or Labour to be in Government, or at the very least be the dominant part of a governing coalition. So yes, the two parties are always under pressure to court the middle ground swing voters who might tip the balance towards them, but it becomes bad for democracy when that goes too far and begins to undermine the core values of the parties concerned, as it definitely did for Labour under Blair and the Conservatives under Cameron. For me, both of those leaders were snake oil salesmen whose primary thought was always for their own career, rather than their country.

Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, won three General Elections on a strong right-wing platform, and yet we can be fairly certain that a sizeable portion of those who voted her into office would NOT have held such strongly right-leaning views. I don't know whether it was her persona as a strong leader, or particular individual policies which had a crossover appeal, but for Thatcher to win the majorities she did, she must have attracted a predominant portion of the floating vote, disproving the argument that parties have to water down their core beliefs or message to win. In fact, her intransigence may have been a vote winner in itself, because many people interpreted that as strength.

It's other would be power brokers, such as unelected bureaucrats, who actively want to water down the party ideologies, so they get to a point where public decisions to change the Government don't actually change anything.

(In the comedy Yes Minister, which was great because it was not only funny but very true, Civil Servants likes of Sir Humphrey Applebly fear nothing more than strongly ideological "interventionist politicians who have ideas about running the country themselves". He's much happier with egotistical career politicians who could be house-trained and fobbed off with short-term publicity stunts and pettifogging issues, "leaving the job of Government in the hands of the experts", who of course would then serve and help themselves, often literally.)

It's certainly arguable that under a different electoral system, political parties would feel less pressured to water down their ideology to chase extra votes, but we also know from other countries that systems like PR tend to require complicated coalitions of these parties to form a government, and that this situation once again creates opportunities for non-elected elements to exploit the confusion or lack of direction for their own ends. So on balance, I prefer the First Past the Post system with its greater chance of returning strong single-party Governments, but it does need the leading parties within it to remain true to their values, in the democratic interests of the public.

Give me a Thatcher or a Corbyn any day over a Cameron or a Blair!

Excellent thought-provoking post and an interesting conclusion but I wish you'd gone with Wedgie Benn rather than Corbyn. He was at least an orator with an intellect and personal warmth. Corbyn is a cold fish who mumbles his words and has only an average intellect. I actually think that vintage Thatcher would never have allowed our country to sink to its present level vis a vis the EU.

[i961pie]

Excellent thought-provoking post and an interesting conclusion but I wish you'd gone with Wedgie Benn rather than Corbyn. He was at least an orator with an intellect and personal warmth. Corbyn is a cold fish who mumbles his words and has only an average intellect. I actually think that vintage Thatcher would never have allowed our country to sink to its present level vis a vis the EU.

I think you are right Sid, from day one she would have gone into negotiations with a clear agenda and would have been fully prepared for a no deal if negotiations weren't getting anywhere.

[jackal2]

Excellent thought-provoking post and an interesting conclusion but I wish you'd gone with Wedgie Benn rather than Corbyn. He was at least an orator with an intellect and personal warmth. Corbyn is a cold fish who mumbles his words and has only an average intellect. I actually think that vintage Thatcher would never have allowed our country to sink to its present level vis a vis the EU.

I'm happy to accept Tony Benn as a better example. I'd agree that in terms of intellect and oratory skills he was far superior to Jeremy Corbyn!

I also agree with 1961 pie's comment above. Thatcher of course would have been negotiating with a much bigger majority behind her, but Theresa May only has herself to blame for the General election disaster where she somehow contrived to weaken her position!

[MagpieTony]

With the blurring of traditional party political lines, it has been very difficult to see where one party ends and the other begins. On a world and European stage it seems like the political landscape has changed significantly. Has Britain just got left behind in this? Is British politics still trying to hold on to an identity of a bygone age that in this changing world has lost its relevance? In the USA and mainstream Europe, the political arguments focus around the tensions of globalism v populism. Here in Britain, although we haven't really acknowledged it, isn't this what Brexit is all about? It seems a lot more clearly definitive than whether someone is right or left, Labour or Conservative. Do we need to redefine our politics to take this into consideration and do we need new political parties to more clearly accommodate and represent this?

[jackal2]

With the blurring of traditional party political lines, it has been very difficult to see where one party ends and the other begins. On a world and European stage it seems like the political landscape has changed significantly. Has Britain just got left behind in this? Is British politics still trying to hold on to an identity of a bygone age that in this changing world has lost its relevance? In the USA and mainstream Europe, the political arguments focus around the tensions of globalism v populism. Here in Britain, although we haven't really acknowledged it, isn't this what Brexit is all about? It seems a lot more clearly definitive than whether someone is right or left, Labour or Conservative. Do we need to redefine our politics to take this into consideration and do we need new political parties to more clearly accommodate and represent this?

Possibly so!

I do suspect that if the globalist elements of the Labour and Conservative parties (and others) are eventually seen to have conspired to thwart or water down Brexit, then it will be manner from heaven for a populist movement to turn this country's political system and establishment upside down. Powerful enough even to break through the First Past the Post safety net, if the movement even plays by the current democratic rules!

I only half jest. Until now we've only seen parties like UKIP expand and deflate like blisters on wallpaper, but these are nothing more than early warning signals of what can happen when the mass population feels more and more ignored or manipulated by the traditional political establishment, be that national or global.

Right now, we seem to have a situation where a large number if not a majority of MPs seem to be not-so-secretly looking for ways to emasculate Brexit, on the premise that they know best and on the glib assumption that the 52% who voted Leave will have a short-lived grumble and then go back to sleep. They don't seem to appreciate that the agitating factors which led to the Leave vote (and not just immigration by any means) are growing, not subsiding.

It's often argued that calling the Brexit referendum divided the country. Of course it didn't. The divides have been growing for decades, not least the well recognised North/South one. All the Brexit referendum did is allow people to vent that feeling of anger and division in more binary terms than ever before, which is probably why it engaged folk who had previously never bothered to vote.

Quite frankly, if some of the most experienced politicians in the land from all the major political parties are so dim or arrogant as to ignore both the mood music and the quantitative data, then God help them. They're creating the kind of environment that Hitler would have thrived in, and again I'm not sure how much I'm joking!

[BigFatPie]

Possibly so!

I do suspect that if the globalist elements of the Labour and Conservative parties (and others) are eventually seen to have conspired to thwart or water down Brexit, then it will be manner from heaven for a populist movement to turn this country's political system and establishment upside down. Powerful enough even to break through the First Past the Post safety net, if the movement even plays by the current democratic rules!

I only half jest. Until now we've only seen parties like UKIP expand and deflate like blisters on wallpaper, but these are nothing more than early warning signals of what can happen when the mass population feels more and more ignored or manipulated by the traditional political establishment, be that national or global.

Right now, we seem to have a situation where a large number if not a majority of MPs seem to be not-so-secretly looking for ways to emasculate Brexit, on the premise that they know best and on the glib assumption that the 52% who voted Leave will have a short-lived grumble and then go back to sleep. They don't seem to appreciate that the agitating factors which led to the Leave vote (and not just immigration by any means) are growing, not subsiding.

It's often argued that calling the Brexit referendum divided the country. Of course it didn't. The divides have been growing for decades, not least the well recognised North/South one. All the Brexit referendum did is allow people to vent that feeling of anger and division in more binary terms than ever before, which is probably why it engaged folk who had previously never bothered to vote.

Quite frankly, if some of the most experienced politicians in the land from all the major political parties are so dim or arrogant as to ignore both the mood music and the quantitative data, then God help them. They're creating the kind of environment that Hitler would have thrived in, and again I'm not sure how much I'm joking!

Oh dear. So many words to not conclude that people have always been convinced by rich men with lots of money to vote against their own interests.

[jackal2]

Oh dear. So many words to not conclude that people have always been convinced by rich men with lots of money to vote against their own interests.

… or so few words needed to illustrate that some people never listen closely enough to hear true public opinion, or even if they do hear it, they simply convince themselves that they are intellectually superior and everyone else is wrong or misguided. The stock view of many Guardian readers in fact.

[BigFatPie]

“The kind of environment that Hitler thrived in” . Is that a warning or an aspiration?